Barbara Ann Booker Bachmann

If you feel like crying, stop. Sing instead. Eat ice cream. Or chili. Watch a movie. Play bingo. Laugh with your best friend over nothing at all. These are all more fitting ways to remember and pay honor to Barbara Ann Bachmann, a 71-year-old, loving mother, grandmother, best friend, retired nurse, animal lover and dedicated child of a living God. She entered eternal life on August 8, 2014.

In her 71 years, Barb struggled. Her life on this Earth was fraught with financial struggles, emotional and physical ailments. But Barb, known as Babs to many, loved life in spite of it all. She especially loved people! She could never get her fill of good conversation or company. She loved to prepare delicious meals. She was brilliant. Witty. And generous! She always made time to make people feel special, loved and wanted.

Barb made holidays magical. Christmas was her specialty. She kept her family together and focused on what was most important, loving and serving God, who restored her health and gave her 20 years more than medicine, to which she dedicated her career, could offer her. She was a living, breathing, talking, singing, laughing miracle and we will miss her, always.

Barb was an active member of the Lutheran Church of Vestavia Hills, AL, where she will be sent off with honors on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 at 11 a.m. Friends and family are welcome to join in celebrating her life and reminiscing over a luncheon to follow, provided by many treasured church members and friends.

Barb is survived by her daughters, Kyra Leigh Hagan and Kristen Lynne Bachmann; two granddaughters, Raeven Hagan and Rileigh Maldonado; two sons-in-law, Sean Hagan and Mario Maldonado; her very best friend in the world, Karen McCarthy; her "other daughters," Melissa Johnston and Amy Hurt Aucutt; and many treasured friends and family members.

Barb was preceded in death by the love of her life, Julius William Bachmann, Jr.; her parents, Edith and Ernest Booker; her sister, Jean Marie Spain; and a beautiful grandson, "Junior."